The Great Amulet | Page 5

rapidity and certainty with which she produced her effects.
Lenox, returning, extended his firmly-knit length of figure on the sloping ground near by, and flung aside his cap; thus revealing more clearly the rugged contour of his head, and the black hair whose obstinate ripple no amount of brushing could subdue. With leisurely deliberation he filled his pipe, and surrendered himself to the enchantment of the hour, before it slipped from him into the region of accomplished things. And it is this very evanescence, this rainbow quality of our hill-top moments, that adds such poignant intensity to their charm.
Much of their brief courtship had been spent in such wordless companionship: the man smoking beside her, with, or without, a book, while she worked; and he never wearied of watching that abiding miracle, a picture springing to life under an artist's fingers.
"You're not likely to give up this sort of thing, I suppose?" he asked suddenly; and she turned upon him with blank astonishment in her eyes.
"Give it up? . . . You might as well ask if I shall ever give up seeing, or hearing, or feeling. It is a part of me. You don't want me to give it up, do you?"
"Far from it. I was merely thinking that it seems suicidal for an artist of your quality to bury herself alive in a little Frontier station, on the edge of a desert, more than a hundred miles from anywhere."
"Rubbish! It simply means a new range of subjects for my brush. Tell me a little about it, please. I like to try and picture things in advance; and I am lamentably ignorant about this remarkable Frontier Force, to which I now have the honour to belong. Are we all on the wrong side of the Indus, always?"
"Yes, for ever and ever; except when we get away on leave."
"And then we go camping and climbing in the far hills beyond Kashmir, don't we?"
"Yes, invariably! For the rest of the time we keep 'cave' along six hundred miles of heart-breaking Border country."
"In other words, you are watch-dogs guarding the gates of an Empire?"
"That sounds far more imposing; and it's no less true. We are also actively engaged in helping the Indian Government to cultivate friendly relations with the tribes at the point of the bayonet!"
"And don't the tribes respond?"
"Yes, vigorously, to the tune of bullets and cold steel; so that we manage to keep things pretty lively between us! Since we annexed the Frontier, nearly forty years ago, the Piffers have taken part in more than thirty Border expeditions, all told, to say nothing of the Afghan War."
Quita's attention had been diverted from her picture to her husband's face.
"You get your fill of fighting at that rate," she said, "And I think you must be rather magnificent when you are fighting, Eldred."
Lenox shrugged his shoulders, and laughed.
"I'm a keen soldier, if that's what you're driving at: and I believe the world holds no finer school for character than constant active service."
"I confess I never thought of looking at war in that light! But I can well believe it, if its horrors and hardships turn out many men . . . like you."
Words and tone set the man's pulses in commotion. But he clenched his teeth upon his pipe-stem, and ignored the personal allusion.
"Well, you can see for yourself, when you get there. Taking 'em all round, I think you'll find the Piffers as fine a set of fellows as you could wish to meet anywhere; and it's hard work, and hard conditions of life, that thrash them into shape."
"And the stations, where I am to be 'buried alive' in such good company?"
"I'm afraid the stations are the least satisfactory part of the programme. There are five of them along our north-west strip of desert; all more or less hopeless to get at. We play general post among them every two or three years, to avoid stagnation and keep the men fit. Just now my battery's quartered at Dera Ghazee Khan, a God-forsaken place, right down by Scindh. I don't know how I have the cheek to think of taking you there."
"But if I refuse to be left behind . . . ?"
"Well, of course . . . in that case . . ." His eyes, looking up into hers, completed the sentence.
"I'm not a 'society woman,' remember; and setting aside your companionship, I should prefer a 'God-forsaken place' on the Indian Frontier to St. John's Wood or Upper Tooting, any day! I am prepared to find it all very interesting."
"So you may, at the start. But the interest is likely to wear thin after the first few years of it."
"Well, perhaps by that time we shall have arrived at the enchanted palace, and then nothing else will matter at all!--There now; I've